Homecoming
by Amilyn
Summary: Not all homecomings are joyous. Variations on a theme; these pieces do not take place in the same timeline, but are separate and free-standing from one another. Written for Bones ga Summer 13 commentfic for Sheytune. Beta by Mechabiera. Warnings: character deaths, grief.
1. Homecoming: Rain

Homecoming: Rain

ooo

The key turned smoothly.

It felt...wrong...that anything should go smoothly.

The whole world should be snarled and prickly and off-kilter and difficult. That was how she felt.

There was no rational reason for her to feel that the world should reflect her emotional state. It never had before.

But...that had been when he was there as an emotional lightning rod.

Even the world should be haywire without his grounding presence.

"Mama?"

She realized she was still standing, staring at the door of their "Mighty Hut," gripping the key so tightly a mold could be made from the impressions. Of course, the casting would be marred by the lines of her skin, unusable in court.

Christine tugged the forefinger of her other hand. "Mama, in!" Huge blue eyes peered up from under the lace on the bonnet Angela...or someone...had tied under the little girl's chin and Christine smiled crookedly while squinting against the sun.

It should have rained today. It was always raining when things changed for them.

It was raining when he talked to the air less than two weeks before.

Raining when she kissed him then watched him getting soaked behind her cab.

Raining when she'd climbed into bed with him and they'd made Christine.

Raining when they wheeled him into surgery with her holding his hand...and when she'd walked, every muscle rigid, into the waiting room, still gowned, to tell her...family that this time he'd coded in response to the anesthesia.

She'd been raining then too, droplets falling unheeded.

Another splashed onto her daughter's cheek.

"Don't cry, Mama." Christine reached, and Brennan picked her up and stepped inside.

The first thunderclap sounded as the door latched behind them.

~end~


	2. Homecoming: Empty

Homecoming: Empty

ooo

The glass in his hand was empty. The scotch bottle beckoned, safely out of reach, and gravity and guilt weighed him down, lashing him to their couch, tight as the bands around his chest.

So many mistakes.

Drinking now.

Letting Angela take Christine and Henry with her.

Coming home to this emptiness.

Ignoring the gut feeling _"something isn't right."_

Not seeing the glint of a barrel.

Tackling her a split second too late.

Her last words had been wrong.

_"Not your fault."_

He was her gun, her partner, her _protector_.

His stomach roiled and he shoved himself up, barely making it to the kitchen sink before he threw up.

The good scotch she'd bought him for Christmas.

A waste. It was all a waste.

His hand tightened around the neck of the cut glass decanter, also from her. The points dug into his flesh. It should hurt, but nothing could match the pain that contorted her face as she gasped through pink froth, "Love you. Love kids. Tell them...love...love..." Then the grasp on his hand relaxed and the pain vanished, her face relaxed and beautiful. And empty.

Everything was empty now.

His glass.

Their "Mighty Hut."

His heart.

He could drink the decanter empty, but it could never fill him.

Raising the bottle, he closed his eyes, muscles tensed to throw it. He paused, then flung the tumbler against the granite tile, set the bottle-_"Artisinal cut-glass decanter, Booth!"_-on the counter, and cried.

He'd thought he was empty of tears too.

~end~


	3. Homecoming: Holding On

Homecoming: Holding On

ooo

The drive home from Morehead City feels interminable.

Booth hadn't thought anything could weigh as heavy as the drive there.

Brennan looks into the back seat for the hundredth time. She'd planned to sit with Christine until Parker insisted on coming along for his little sister. Pride in the young man Parker is now overwhelms the constant ache he has felt looking at his children these past days.

His mind is still spinning.

The whirlwind of phone calls, emergency plans, Brennan flying ahead, hope-filled prayers to St. Hugh. Then a 3:30 am call that put an end to the hopes and changed the prayers to ones to the Blessed Mother, who understood. The clenching of his stomach as he woke Parker and broke the news, as he picked up and clutched Christine to him and breathed in her scent.

Three days later, that seems a lifetime ago and he feels aged by the new lines in Russ's face, the extra gray in Max's hair, by the way Parker stuck close to Emma and Christine, by the number of times Brennan slipped her hand into his and held on tight. Aged by the perfect bow in Hayley's hair and Amy's sobs as they left the graveside service.

The headlights do little to cut through the darkness and they head home. His children are holding hands, asleep in the back seat. Brennan is silent, still stiff. She'll come apart later, alone.

He slips his hand into hers and holds on tight.

~end~


	4. Homecoming: Finality

Homecoming: Finality

ooo

Today is the day they put him into the ground.

So many names.

Max Keenan.

Columbus.

Matthew Brennan.

Dad.

Grandpa.

She'd buried her mother as Christine Brennan. She'd only ever known Christine Brennan. Never Ruth Keenan. She'd never met the woman who birthed her or the woman who left her.

Russ had met both of them, but she didn't ask his opinion then.

Yesterday they decided together.

In time, the engraver will add the name "Max Keenan" to the stone.

Today she stands with Russ at one shoulder, Booth at the other. Christine's tears soak through her skirt to her thigh. She rests a hand on Christine's hair. This is the first and last time Max will leave Christine.

Incomprehensibly, it is the thought that he will never abandon her again that makes Brennan's eyes and nose prick with tears as they lower her father's remains into the earth.

~end~


End file.
